Childhood and Disability

Children with disabilities and their families face a range of challenges. We can assist with these challenges and support the full unconstrained participation of children and young people with a disability in society by:

Identifying and analysing the factors that restrict or preclude participation of children and young people with a disability in their communities.

Engaging with service providers, educators, and government in exploring the demand, need, and preferences for services used by children with disabilities and their families as citizen consumers.

Promoting the health and wellbeing of children and young people living with disability or mental illness in Australian society and in collaboration with our international colleagues in other countries.

The report suggests that up to 14% of children with disability are likely to experience sexual abuse and stresses the importance of future research to understand the interaction between a child’s age, gender, family and socio-economic circumstances and their family and community environments and their experience of abuse.

An article on the link between statistical learning and language acquisition in typically developing children as well as children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, such as autism spectrum disorders.

ABSTRACT: The central argument presented in this paper is that statistical learning (SL) is an ability comprised of multiple components that operate largely implicitly. Components relating to the stimulus encoding, retention and abstraction required for SL may include, but are not limited to, certain types of attention, processing speed and memory. It is likely that individuals vary in terms of the efficiency of these underlying components, and in patterns of connectivity among these components, and that SL tasks differ from one another in how they draw on certain underlying components more than others. This theoretical framework is of value because it can assist in gaining a clearer understanding of how SL is linked with individual differences in complex mental activities such as language processing. Variability in language proces- sing across individuals is of central concern to researchers interested in child development, including those interested in neurodevelopmental disorders where language can be affected such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This paper discusses the link between SL and individual differences in language processing in the context of age-related changes in SL during infancy and childhood, and whether SL is affected in ASD. Viewing SL as a multi- component ability may help to explain divergent findings from previous empirical research in these areas and guide the design of future studies. This article is part of the themed issue ‘New frontiers for statistical learning in the cognitive sciences’.

This study explored the effects of ABRACADABRA, a free computer-assisted literacy program, on the reading accuracy and comprehension skills of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ABRACADABRA is a balanced literacy instruction program, targeting both code and meaning-based reading abilities. Twenty children with ASD, aged 5–11 years, were assigned by matched pairs to the instruction group or wait-list control group. Literacy instruction was delivered on a 1:1 basis in participants’ homes over a 13-week period (26 sessions per participant). Pre and post instruction assessment using standardized measures revealed statistically significant gains in reading accuracy and comprehension for the instruction group relative to the wait-list control group, with large effect sizes. These findings indicate that children with ASD may benefit from ABRACADABRA literacy instruction.